592 



NA TORE 



[August 15, 1907 



doctrine that the progress of science ought to be an end 

 in itself, that scientific research ought to be pursued with- 

 out regard to its immediate applications, that the import- 

 ance of a discovery must not be measured by its apparent 

 utility at the moment. We are assured that research in 

 pure science is bound to work itself out in due time into 

 technical applications of utility, and that the pioneer ought 

 not to pause in his quest to work out potential industrial 

 developments. We are invited to consider the example 

 of the immortal Faraday, who deliberately abstained from 

 busying himself with marketable inventions arising out of 

 his discoveries, e.\cusing himself on the ground that he 

 had no time to spare for money-making. It is equally 

 true, and equally to the point, that Faraday, when he 

 had established a new fact or a new physical relation, 

 ceased from busying himself with it and pronounced that 

 it was now ready to be handed over to the mathematicians. 

 But, admitting all these commonplaces as to the value of 

 abstract science in itself and for its own sake, admitting 

 also the proposition that .sooner or later the practical 

 applications are bound to follow on upon the discovery, 

 it yet remains true that in this thing the temperament of 

 the discoverer counts for something. There are scientific 

 investigators who cannot pursue their work if troubled bv 

 the question of ulterior applications ; there are others no 

 less truly scientific who simply cannot work without the 

 definilencss of aim that is given by a practical problem 

 awaiting solution. There are Willanses as well as 

 Regnaults ; there are Whitworths as well as Pois.sons. 

 The world needs both types of investigator ; and it needs, 

 too, yet another type of pioneer — namely, the man who, 

 making no claim to original discovery, by patient appli- 

 cation and intelligent skill turns to' industrial fruitful- 

 ness the results already attained in abstract discoverv. 



There is, however, another aspect of the relation between 

 pure and applied science, the significance of which has 

 not been hitherto so much emphasised, but vet is none 

 the less real — the reaction upon science and upon scientific 

 discovery of the industrial applications. For while pure 

 science breeds useful inventions, it is none the less true 

 that the industrial development of useful inventions fosters 

 the progress of pure science. No one who is conversant 

 with the history, for example, of optics can doubt that 

 the invention of the telescope and the desire to perfect it 

 were the principal factors in the outburst of optical science 

 which we associate with the names of Newton, Huvgens, 

 and Euler. The practical application, which we know was 

 in the minds of each of the.se men, must surely have been 

 the impelling inotive that caused them to concentrate on 

 abstract optics their great and exceptional powers of 

 thought. It was in the quest — the hopeless quest — of the 

 philosopher's stone and the elixir of life that the found- 

 ations of the science of chemistry were laid. The inven- 

 tion of the art of photography has given immense assist- 

 ance to sciences as widely apart as meteorology, elhnologv. 

 astronomy, zoology, and .spectroscopy. Of the laws of 

 heat men were profoundly ignorant until the invention of 

 the steam engine compelled scientific investigation ; and 

 the new science of thermodynamics was born. Had there 

 beeji no industrial development of the steam engine, is it 

 at all likely that the w-or!d would ever have been enriched 

 with the scientific researches of Rankine, Joule, Rcgnault, 

 Hirn, or James Thomson? The magnet had been known 

 for centuries, yet the study of it was utterlv neglected 

 until the application of it in the mariners' compass gave 

 the incentive for research. 



The history of electric telegraphy furnishes a verv 

 striking example of this reflex influence of industrial appli- 

 cations. The discovery of the electric current bv Volta 

 and the investigation of its properties appear to have been 

 stimulated by the medical properties attributed in the pre- 

 ceding fifty years to electric discharges. But, once the 

 current had been discovered, a new incentive arose in the 

 dim possibility it suggested of transmitting signals to a 

 distance. This was certainly a possibility, even when 

 only the chemical effects of the current had yet been found 

 out. Not. however, until the magnetic effects of the 

 current had been discovered and investigated did telegraphv 

 assume commercial shape at the hands of Cooke and 

 Wheatstone in Fngland and of Morse and Vail in .\merica. 

 Let us admit freely ihat these men were inventors rather 



NO. 1972, VOL. 76] 



than discoverers ; exploiters of research rather than 

 pioneers. They built upon the foundations laid by Volta, 

 Oersted, Sturgeon, Henry, and a host of less famous 

 workers. But no sooner had the telegraph become of 

 industrial importance, with telegraph lines erected on land 

 and submarine cables laid in the sea, than fresh investi- 

 gations were found necessary; new and delicate instru- 

 ments must be devised ; means of accurate measurement 

 heretofore undreamed of must be found ; standards for 

 the comparison of electrical quantities must be created ; 

 and the laws governing the operations of electrical systems 

 and apparatus must be investigated and formulated in 

 appropriate mathematical expressions. And so, perforce, 

 as the inevitable consequence of the growth of the tele- 

 graph industry, and mainly at the hands of those interested 

 in submarine telegraphy, there came about the system of 

 electrical and electromagnetic units, based on the early 

 magnetic work of Gauss and Weber, developed further by 

 Lord Kelvin, by Bright and Clark, and last but not least 

 by Clerk Maxwell. Had there been no telegraph industry 

 to force electrical measurement and electrical theory to 

 the front, where would Clerk Maxwell's work have been? 

 He would probably have given his unique powers to the 

 study of optics or geometry ; his electromagnetic theory of 

 light would never have leapt into his brain ; he would 

 never have pi'opounded the existence of electric waves in 

 the ether. .And then we should never have had the far- 

 reaching investigations of Heinrich Hertz ; nor would the 

 British -Association at Oxford in 1894 have witnessed the 

 demonstration of wireless telegraphy by Sir Oliver Lodge. 

 .\ remark of Lord Rayleigh's may here be recalled, that 

 the invention of the telephone had probably done more 

 than anything else to make electricians understand the 

 principle of self-induction. 



In considering this reflex influence of the industrial 

 applications upon the progress of pure science it is of some 

 significance to note that for the most part this influence 

 is entirely helpful. There may be sporadic cases where 

 industrial conditions tend temporarily to check progress 

 by. imposing persistence of a particular type of machine 

 or appliance; but the. general trend is always to help to 

 new developments. The reaction aids the action ; the law 

 that is true enough in inorganic conservative systems, 

 that reaction opposes the action, ceases here to be applic- 

 able, as indeed it ceases to be applicable in a vast number 

 of organic phenomena. It is the very instability thereby 

 introduced which is the essential of progress. The grow- 

 ing organism acts on its environment, and the change in 

 the environment reacts on the organism — not in such a 

 way as to oppose the growth, but so as to promote it. 

 So is it with the development of pure science and its 

 practical applications. 



In further illustration of this principle one might refer 

 to the immense effect which the engineering use of steel 

 has had upon the studv of the chemistry of the alloys. 

 .\nd the study of the alloys has in turn led to the recent 

 development of metallography. It would even seem that 

 through the study of the intimate structure of metals, 

 prompted by the needs of engineers, we are within measur- 

 able distance of arriving at a knowledge of the secret of 

 crystallogenesis. Everything points to the probability of 

 a very great and rapid advance in that fascinating branch 

 of pure science at no distant date. 



Hislory of the Development of Eleclrie Motive Power. 



There is, however, one last exainple of the interaction 

 of science and industry which may claim closer attention. 

 In the history of the development of the electric motor 

 one finds abundant illustration of both aspects of that 

 interaction. 



We go back to the year 182 1, when Faraday, after 

 studying the phenomena of electromagnetic deflexion of a 

 needle by an electric current (Oersted's discovery), first 

 succeeded in producing continuous rotations by electro- 

 magnetic means. In his simple apparatus a piece of 

 suspended copper wire, carrying a current from a small 

 battery, and dipping at its lower end into a cup of 

 mercury, rotated continuously around the pole of a short 

 bar-Tiiagnet of strel placed upright in the cup. In another 

 variety of this experiment the magnet rotated around the 

 central wire, which was fixed. These pieces of apparatus 

 were the merest toys, incapable of doing any useful work ; 



